Course history is a topic that comes up every single week there is a PGA event and is brought up even more during The Masters. To nobody’s surprise, Data Golf shows that course history is the most predictive at Augusta National compared to any other course on the PGA TOUR.
So, I decided to dive into our Course-Adjusted Round Score (course and field adjusted) metric that we have in our PGA Player Models to see which players are standing out with their course history.
That said, I don’t think we should blindly select the golfers with the best course history. They should have some sort of semblance of form heading into this week. It would seem unlikely a player who has struggled thus far would suddenly find his form at The Masters.
The golfers with a strong history, but poor form, may turn into strong GPP pivots.
And if you missed it, we added two new metrics in our models — Perfect% and SimLeverage. You can find an explainer on those metrics here.
The cliff notes version is that you can use SimLeverage to quickly find leverage plays in tournaments, while Perfect% is great for finding the best price-considered plays for cash games.
And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
Let’s dive in.
Strong History, Strong Form
Russell Henley ($7,800 DraftKings)
Our Course-Adjusted Round Scores go back the last six years, giving Henley one of the best scores (67.3) from his two appearances in 2017 and 2018. His Course-Adjusted Round Score trails only Will Zalatoris (66.4, one appearance) and Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm (67.1).
It’s only Monday, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Henley come in as one of the highest-rostered players on the slate when your factor in his course history, price, and form.
Over his last 50 rounds, he ranks third in Data Golf’s True Strokes Gained: Approach and 11th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, which is incredible given the strength of this field. If we shrink this to his last 20 rounds, he still ranks fifth in approach and 16th from tee-to-green.
Henley enters this week making 15 cuts in a row. His last missed cut came last July at the British Open.
In our early set of projections — he’s showing up in 10.28% of perfect lineups — the second-best mark among golfers in his price range.
Corey Conners (7,600 DraftKings)
Conners has three appearances at The Masters over the last six years. He’s made the cut in all three appearances, resulting in a 68.3 Course-Adjusted Round Score.
He struggled at the Valero Texas Open, but I don’t think that will deter people from rostering him this week at this price. Along with Henley, he should be one of the highest-rostered guys in this range.
Over his last 50 rounds, Conners ranks 19th in True Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and if we cut that down to his last 20 rounds, he ranks 11th.
Matthew Fitzpatrick ($7,700 DraftKings)
Fitzpatrick should make up one of the highest-rostered guys in this range on the slate. Fitz has a 68.7 Course-Adjusted Round Score and hasn’t missed a cut in his last six appearances.
His form is strong as well, ranking sixth in True Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green over his last 20 rounds.
That said, he hasn’t shown much upside at this event. He finished seventh in 2016 but hasn’t finished inside the top 20 since then, and he’s finished out the top 30 in three of his last four appearances.
It’s actually interesting that one of the shorter hitters on TOUR is routinely one of the highest-rostered guys at a course that places such an emphasis on distance.
It’s unlikely any of these players find their way onto my single-entry GPP team.
Strong History, Poor Form
Tony Finau ($8,100 DraftKings)
Finau’s 67.8 Course-Adjusted Round Score is the ninth-best mark in this field. His form isn’t completely terrible, relatively speaking, but it’s down compared to his baseline.
If we consider Finau’s last two years his baseline, then he is certainly underperforming. Over the last two years, he ranks 17th in True Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, but over his last 20 and 50 rounds, he ranks 48th and 30th, respectively.
This early in the week, I’m struggling to get a pulse on his ownership projection, but at the moment, I think it’ll be lower than we’re used to seeing for him at The Masters.
Our early run of projections him in just under 10% of perfect lineups when we run our sims.
Patrick Reed ($7,400 DraftKings)
If you want to talk about strong course history and awful form, Patrick Reed is your guy! Over his last six appearances here, he has a solid 68.3 Course-Adjusted Round Score, which is the same as Conners, Louis Oosthuizen, and Webb Simpson.
Over Reed’s last two years, he ranks 27th in True Total Strokes Gained, but over his last 20 and 50 rounds, he ranks 58th and 55th.
Given that Reed is mostly a short-game specialist, it looks even worse since he ranks 74th and 80th in True Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee.
I probably don’t have the stones to use him in my single-entry tournaments, but if you’re a mass-multi-entry (MME) player, it won’t take much to be even or overweight with the field.
Justin Rose ($7,500 DraftKings)
Rose has a strong history at Augusta, as his 67.7 Course-Adjusted Round Score is the seventh-best mark in the field.
However, he’s had a rough go of it in 2022.
Overall, Rose has one sixth-place finish; otherwise, he has two missed cuts to go along with a 62nd and 33rd-place finish.
His Strokes Gained data certainly confirms this — ranking 65th and 53rd in True Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green over his last 20 and 50 rounds.
